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Murder trial opens with tearful testimony

Emotional testimony from the youngest of Cheri
Lynn Duggan's daughters set the tone for the first day of the capital
murder and aggravated sexual assault trial of Daniel Joseph Griffin.

Griffin,
35, is charged with the October 2006 murder of Duggan, 38, the mother
of his 19-year-old girlfriend, at her home in the Silverado Estates,
five miles east of Kaufman off County Road 101, and the sexual assault
of Duggan's youngest daughter.

After jury selection on Monday, the trial
got under way on Tuesday in Judge Michael Chitty's 422nd State District
Court as District Attorney Rick Harrison wasted no time establishing
the prosecution's case.

Harrison opened the trial by sketching
out details of the events that occurred Oct. 9, 2006 resulting in what
he called a "retaliation" slaying of the former Kaufman High School
lunchroom worker and mother of three as well as the sexual assault of
her then 15-year-old daughter by Griffin.

"This is a situation
where everything was rocking along and tension was building in that
house," Harrison told jurors. "Then [Griffin] just lost it."

Griffin
was dating Duggan's 19-year-old daughter, Christina Harrison, when the
two moved into the home just weeks prior to the incident.

"Cheri
Duggan and her husband didn't like the fact that he was older, that he
was on parole and that they suspected he was doing drugs," Harrison
said. "Daniel Griffin didn't like the situation either. He didn't like
doing chores or having to pay $400 in rent."

According to
Harrison, as days turned into weeks, tension built in the home, leading
to an altercation between Duggan and Griffin on the morning of Oct. 9,
2006 after she witnessed he and her daughter doing drugs the prior
night.

"She told him she wanted him out of her house or she'd
call the police," Harrison said. "He lost it. He picked up a knife,
chased her toward her bedroom and stabbed her nine times in the back -
one stab so severe it damaged her spinal cord. Then he lifted her head
off the ground and slit her neck."

Harrison called Duggan's
youngest daughter to the stand to establish what happened next. (By
policy, The Kaufman Herald does not print the name of rape victims.)

Awakened
by her mother's screams, the daughter testified that she ran to
Duggan's room only to be met by Griffin who she described on the
witness stand Tuesday as to be "covered in so much blood it was
dripping from him."

In a tearful recount of events, Duggan's
daughter described to jurors how Griffin bound and gagged Christina
Harrison and their 17-year-old mentally challenged sister in one room
before escorting the 15-year-old to another room where he forced her to
have oral sex and sexual intercourse.

"He told me that if I
didn't cooperate, he was going to kill [the sisters] and make me
watch," said the daughter, who added that he'd also promised she could
see her mother, who at the time she testified she did not know was dead.

The
witness then told jurors that Griffin tied she and her 17-year-old
sister up in one of the bedrooms before leaving with Christina
Harrison. At some point, the youngest daughter freed herself and ran to
her mother's room.

"Then I found my mom," she sobbed. "I shook
her, but she didn't move. She was on the floor and there was a lot of
blood. I heard [her 17-year-old sister] coming, but I couldn't say
anything. I just ran out of the house and to a neighbor's house where I
told them 'He killed my mom. Daniel Griffin killed my mom.'"

On
Tuesday, the district attorney also called to the stand Christina
Harrison, who told jurors that Griffin had told her he had killed
Duggan in self defense stating that she pushed him, he pushed her and
then he stabbed her once. It's a story Duggan's oldest daughter, who
admitted she continued to harbor feelings for Griffin, believed up
until December 2007 when prosecutors detailed the extent of her
mother's injuries.

"What do you think of his story now?" the DA asked.

"His self defense story can't be true," she sobbed. "She would never hurt anyone."

Griffin's attorney Dennis Jones reserved the right to have his opening statement at a later point in the trial.

Jones
spent some time Tuesday questioning the testimony of Sgt. Tim Moore, a
Kaufman County Sheriff's Office criminal investigator, challenging the
prosecution's theory that the suspect had pinned Duggan to the ground,
stabbing her to death in the back.

"You cannot say for certain
whether she was laying on her stomach on the ground or whether she was
standing, can you?," Jones asked.

To which, Moore answered, "No."

In
cross-examination of Duggan's youngest daughter, Jones also got the
witness to describe Griffin as an "average guy who was a bit shy."